Wood is known to be a quality building material capable of withstanding a great deal of weathering and time when properly maintained. Additionally, wood presents a valuable aesthetic which is unmatched by any competing erecting material. As such, wood is used for a great deal of projects, ranging from farm fencing to log cabins and interior wood paneling. As a result of the prominence of wood, it is relatively expensive to construct and maintain a modern log cabin.
Presently, the realm of home construction and renovation, there is a growing trend to craft the siding of homes to have the appearance of being rustic log cabins externally. Customers want modern conveniences indoors, but wish for their homes to appear as though they are genuine log cabins. In order to achieve this effect, home builders have taken to deconstructing genuine, old log cabins in order to reclaim the wood, and place it, trimmed or as-is, around the perimeter of the walls of the house to provide the appearance that the house is actually constructed with wooden logs. Unfortunately, once entering the structure, it is readily apparent that the house is not a true log cabin, as the interior walls do not depict the other side of the logs.
This process, while effective, is rather expensive which prohibits many customers from pursuing the option. Additionally, despite the expense and work, the logs, once reclaimed, are only used again once, on the new structure. Some companies cut the reclaimed logs in half, as only the front half is needed to provide the appearance of a log cabin but leave the ends of the logs intact as these points are shown externally at the corners of the structure. Still, this ensures that the logs are only able to be used on the single property instance.
If there were a way to reconstruct the antique look of original logs without requiring their actual re-use, the process of achieving the ‘log cabin look’ would be easier for more customers.
Other techniques have included temporary (or permanent) removal of the log, taking a mold of the log, and then casting the form of a portion or entirety of the log in concrete. However, taking a mold of the log as-is does not allow for the sizing and proportions of the log to be altered to facilitate installation of the casted form onto properties of varying sizes. Additionally, existing methods of crafting a mold based on a wooden log employ numerous coats of latex to provide the detail needed, requiring a large amount of time to accomplish the project.
Thus, there is a need for a method and system by which faux logs can be crafted for placement onto structures to achieve a ‘log cabin look’ which facilitates the design of logs of varying sizes based on an original log's appearance. Such a system preferably employs high definition scanning technology to obtain three-dimensional scans of logs found on antiquated log cabins (or other desired wood, such as weathered wood fencing) which does not necessitate the removal of the logs from the original structure. Additionally, such a system would be vastly superior to current techniques in the prior art, as, via the three-dimensional scans obtained, the essence of the originally scanned logs may be used countless times on different structures, removing the need to reclaim old wood from log cabins (or other wood sources) altogether.